Edgar Allan Poe and the Empire of the Dead Read online

  I walked for a short time along Kingsbridge Road, then left the track to vagabond through the woods and fully immerse myself in the natural world, in part to enjoy its wonders, but mostly to see if the feeling that Sissy had returned to me would persist, or if Nature would chase away the specters of my dreams. As soon as I entered the woodland, the rules of our world fell away like a discarded cloak. A deep silence enveloped me; then there was birdsong and the rustling of the invisible. A tangle of scent rose up around me: chocolatey loam, sweet rainwater, blossoms and new leaves, distant pine. Brightness glistened on the green, dripped onto the forest floor like morning dew, and I knew absolutely that my wife was with me, could almost feel her hand slip into mine.

  I followed a natural path that meandered through the undulating terrain, perhaps the secret avenue of the deer and wild turkey that roamed by day or the foxes and raccoons by night. The leafy canopy of chestnut, hickory and black walnut intermingled with oaks, and sassafras trees swayed and chattered. Perfume spilled from the last of the yellow-green tulip tree blossoms. As I walked, squirrels tracked my movements, scurrying up and down tree trunks or leaping above me from bough to bough. A blood-red cardinal soared overhead and joined its mate. When I passed a glade filled with grass as lush as Genoese velvet and speckled with wildflowers, a doe turned her eyes to mine as if to greet me, then resumed her grazing. That moment alone made me fully certain that Virginia was with me, her gentle spirit soothing the shy creatures that lived amongst the trees—and, so too, my own anxious spirit was calmed.

  When I emerged from the forest into the pleasant little town of West-Farms, I was momentarily disconcerted by the bustling activity. Two farm wagons rattled past me and an old man smoking a meerschaum on his front porch wished me a good morning, as did a harried young woman trying to herd a gaggle of boisterous young children somewhere they did not wish to go. A dog sleeping in a puddle of sunlight gave one lazy bark, then immediately fell back to sleep, and a blackbird hidden in a tree overlooking the carriage track filled the air with a glorious melody. When I opened the door to the post office, which was also a general store, its bells jangled.

  “ ’Tis some visitor tapping at my chamber door. Only this and nothing more,” intoned a deep voice. Moments later, a smiling fellow with black curling hair, luxurious mustachios and a well-cultivated belly emerged from a back room to take up his station at the large polished wooden counter that smelled of lemon oil. “Always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Poe.”

  The postmaster enjoyed quoting lines from my own verse to me, a habit I found irksome, but as he had taken the trouble to commit the poem to memory and ever commented on how it enchanted him, it would have been churlish to diminish his pleasure.

  “How are you, Mr. Quinn? It’s a fine morning for a ramble.”

  “You say that every time I see you, my friend, but you will never persuade me. After my day is done, I enjoy putting my feet up after a nice dinner.” He cheerfully patted his belly with both hands. Mr. Quinn then reached under the counter and brought out a basket full of neatly organized post. “Must be an important letter,” he said as he deftly sifted through the folded pages. “I only just wrote up the list of names with post to collect.”

  “In fact, I came to send this.” I slid the envelope over the counter to him.

  But Mr. Quinn was focused on a letter he had retrieved from the basket, carefully examining the front of it. “Well, you’ve saved us both some effort, then. This was brought up from the city yesterday. Posted less than two weeks ago. Doesn’t seem that long since the days we’d be waiting more than a month—sometimes two—for news from the family back home,” he reminisced. “And much could change in life while waiting for a letter to cross the Atlantic,” he added sagely. He stared at the missive in his hand a moment longer, then, seemingly satisfied that it was for me, handed it over.

  My name and address were inscribed on the front in small precise letters without an ounce of showy flair or embellishments. It was handwriting that I immediately recognized.

  “Steamships will change the world, mark my words,” Mr. Quinn observed.

  “Indeed,” I murmured to be polite, but in truth I had stopped absorbing the postmaster’s chitchat. Unable to contain myself, I broke the seal and opened the letter.

  No. 33 rue Dunôt,

  Faubourg St-Germain, Paris

  1 June 1849

  Dear Poe,

  I was pleased to receive your letter dated the nineteenth of April and am glad a lift in the weather has eased your melancholy and contributed to an improvement in your health. After making the acquaintance of your wife in Philadelphia, it is not difficult to imagine your continued grief in losing her and its ill effects upon you. As your true friend, might I respectfully suggest that a change of environment might prove a mild tonic?

  Enclosed you will find a ticket to sail on the twenty-seventh of June, from Philadelphia to Le Havre. I have made some discoveries that I believe will enable me to receive justice for all I have endured. With your assistance, I will at last prevail against my nemesis.

  May I also suggest that you bring the letters. You know the ones of which I speak—your legacy. I have information regarding the whereabouts of the man who wishes you ill and believe the letters will prove useful.

  I hope you will journey to Paris and assist me in my mission. Of course, I insist on taking care of all your expenses during your journeys and your stay here.

  Your obedient servant,

  C. Auguste Dupin

  Dupin’s message left my mind a-swarm with questions. Had my friend at last located his enemy Ernest Valdemar? Or had he merely an idea of his location and some kind of plan to draw him out? And what would happen when he finally cornered the man who had destroyed his family? I knew from experience that Dupin would not hesitate to murder the villain—I could not envisage him taking any other action as he would fear that Valdemar would find a way to escape prison. While I did not fully support my friend’s desire to end the life of his foe, it was not difficult to understand why he so despised him, for Valdemar had sent Dupin’s paternal grandparents to the guillotine, had murdered his mother and provoked the death of his father. He had appropriated their money and valuable accouterments, then had taunted Dupin by selling those prized family heirlooms at auctions. Given Dupin’s renown in Paris for solving the most complex mysteries, it was all the more humiliating that the infamous Valdemar had eluded him for so many years. I had no doubt that Dupin would eventually find a way to destroy his nemesis, but I was not certain he would have the good sense to make it appear an accident.

  “Not bad news, I hope.”

  Mr. Quinn’s voice made me jump and his look of genuine concern increased.

  “I’m sorry. The letter is just … unexpected. I may need to make a journey to visit a friend,” I added.

  “In Paris?” Enthusiasm replaced the look of worry on his face.

  I was startled by the postmaster’s mind-reading capabilities until I realized he had seen the stamp of origin on the envelope.

  “Indeed.”

  “My wife has long dreamt of going there. She speaks the language, you see, and is very taken with The Mysteries of Paris. I think she has read the confounded thing several times now.” He shook his head. “All those miscreants and murderers—she revels in their awful deeds.” He shivered dramatically. “I like a cheerful romance when reading for pleasure, and one with fewer pages than that never-ending tome.”

  I smiled at the thought of the postmaster’s equally plump and very pretty wife devouring Eugène Sue’s novels. She seemed such a light-hearted, frivolous creature with her enormous blue eyes brimming perpetual innocence and her pastel dresses over-decorated with bows and lace.

  “I have not been to Paris in many years, indeed not since I first met my friend there. It may very well do me good to visit him—and Paris—again,” I said. But in truth I was remembering the words Dupin had so often said to me: Amicis semper fidelis—“Always faithful to f
riends”—and he had ever been true to his word when I most needed him. With that recollection, I made up my mind. The Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin had asked for my help and of course I would go to Paris to do what I could to assist him.

  * * *

  That evening Muddy served up chicken with cooked greens, spring onions and bread, and I revealed my news.

  “I’ll be leaving for Philadelphia this Wednesday and then will make my way to Paris. Monsieur Dupin has sent me a ticket. He needs my assistance in a matter.”

  “Helena has not gone missing again, has she?” Muddy asked anxiously.

  Five years previously Dupin stayed with us in Philadelphia and helped to rescue an abducted heiress from London, Miss Helena Loddiges. I had edited an ornithology book for the eccentric Miss Loddiges, who was also an expert taxidermist, and Sissy and she had become good friends. My mother-in-law was also fond of the lady, but was far less sure what to make of Dupin. Sissy grew to like him by the end of his visit and the feeling was reciprocated, though few would easily perceive that Dupin considered my wife a friend. And perhaps truly he did not, perhaps his only friend was me, but there was no doubt that if Sissy had been in any danger, Dupin would have sacrificed his own life to save hers. Unfortunately, he could not vanquish Death himself and nor could I.

  “I’m quite sure Miss Loddiges is safe,” I told Muddy. “This concerns a Dupin family matter and I must assist, given all that he has done for me.”

  “Well, he would not ask for help if he was not in dire need of it,” Muddy observed. “Virginia would certainly want you to go.”

  Her words took me by surprise. “Quite right. Virginia would insist.”

  We were both silent for a moment, imagining that scenario, which I knew to be true once I had voiced it.

  “I don’t know how long I will be in Paris, but I’ll let Mr. Valentine know I’ll be gone for a while and will ask him to stop by as often as he can. Mr. Quinn over in West-Farms knows my plans and will have my letters brought over, for I will write to you regularly.”

  “So long as I know you’re safe and when you will be home again, Eddy. I will worry until I hear from you.”

  “Please don’t. I will be home as soon as I can and I promise I will write.”

  Muddy nodded solemnly, taking my vow to heart.

  * * *

  I tried to read for a while in the parlor but could not concentrate, so I made my way upstairs, Catterina following. I went over Dupin’s letter. There was no question but that I should assist him in his efforts to avenge his family. I was uncertain, however, about his suggestion that I attempt to locate the man who wished me ill. George Reynolds had caused me much grief, yet had vanished from my life since our move to New York. But to ignore Dupin’s suggestion to bring the letters would be to ignore an instruction. I knew my friend well enough to understand that.

  I knelt down and levered up the planks in the floor that kept my legacy safe. There was the mahogany box that held my worst secrets—a Pandora’s box, but without hope hidden within its depths. Reynolds had sent it to me, claiming it was my inheritance, and the letters inside it suggested that my maternal grandparents had been notorious criminals acting as the “London Monster”, who half a century ago had assaulted more than fifty young women in the city of London, slashing their dresses with a blade. Worse still, an innocent man had been imprisoned for their misdeeds and that man was Reynolds’s own father. I had traveled to London nine years previously in hopes of proving the letters false with Dupin’s assistance. Our investigation achieved exactly the opposite.

  I opened the mahogany box and took out the bundle of letters tied up with an antique green ribbon and the violet eye brooch that had saved me from death. Reynolds had lost the love token—a painted miniature of his wife’s eye—and in reaching to pick it up I narrowly escaped being murdered by him. I felt terrible sorrow as I gazed into it, for Rowena Reynolds had fallen to her death like a broken-winged angel and I had failed to prevent her murder. George Reynolds blamed me for that too.

  Catterina padded into the room and sniffed at the gap in the floor, contemplating whether to creep inside. I forestalled her whim by replacing the planks, then dropped the letters and brooch back into the mahogany box, locked it and put it on the dresser, determined to hide it in the bottom of my trunk when morning came.

  The house was silent but for the usual night rustlings indoors and out, and yet I could not fall asleep. Catterina remained awake also, head resting on her paws, eyes fixed straight ahead. Moonlight pushed through the curtains, leaving mysterious trails of silver, and the warm night was disrupted by a blanket of cold air that fell down around me. There was the same rippling in the shadows, and a smudge of chalk appeared that grew and spread until I saw that Sissy was before me, standing at the end of my bed, looking down upon me and Catterina, who stared back at my glimmering wife and was as immobile as a statue.

  “Sissy,” I whispered. “Sissy, my dear.”

  As I said her name, the atmosphere grew even more chill and a stream of air flowed from the window and around the room. The papers on my night table rose up like a swarm of eerie butterflies, then flurried down, and as they did my wife, my darling, melted into the night.

  Catterina slipped off the bed and disappeared through the gap in the door to search the house for her mistress, and I wanted to follow, but a strange fear held me back—the joy I had felt in Sissy’s first appearance was somehow tainted. I lay there, hoping sleep would find me, but the darkness was so heavy I struggled with the weight of it, shifting this way and that, every muscle aching, my skin tormented by the touch of the bedclothes, the hours until morning stretching endlessly before me. Then sunlight washed into the room, and I opened my eyes to find Catterina back in her spot at the end of the bed. My papers were scattered wildly about the room and my letter from Dupin was torn into four neat pieces and deposited on my bedside table.

  4 PHILADELPHIA TO LE HAVRE, 27 JUNE TO 8 JULY 1849

  The signs were not auspicious the day I sailed from Philadelphia. Those versed in the language of the stars would surely have spoken of their ill aspects and advised against crossing the sea while Saturn’s gaze afflicted the moon. Gulls shrieked overhead like demons and the mood of the passengers was fraught as we stood in a pelting rain, waiting to embark. If Dupin had not asked for my assistance and if he had not sent me the ticket for my passage—a drain on his ever-scarce resources—I would have abandoned the journey.

  When I at last stepped onto the Independence, there was no one to wave me farewell, so I made my way to my stateroom feeling shaken. I dreaded the thought of almost two weeks at sea, even if I had endured considerably longer journeys in the past, and that foreboding only increased once we were out in the Atlantic, surrounded by gray seawater, the constant rise and fall of the waves threatening to drown me in melancholy. I stayed hidden away in my room, taking my meals in private and reading to pass the time. Dreams I refused to remember visited me each night, and I was certain on one occasion I heard my wife calling out: “Go home, Eddy, go home.” But I stuck to my pledge of abstinence and did not partake of a drop of solace, knowing that it would only make the horror worse. When I awoke from my tortured sleep unable to breathe, panic coursing through my veins, I opened another book or put pen to paper, determined not to let fear conquer me.

  When I did venture out onto the deck, I could not shake the feeling that someone was following me. The other passengers were rather odd, which did not inspire a sense that all was well. There was a woman dressed all in black, swathed in a heavy veil of the same shade. Mourning gloves covered her ungainly hands and the quantity of memento mori adornments she wore gave her the appearance of Death’s morbid sister. I felt sympathy for her great loss, but the polite greetings I offered were always met with stony silence. At first her apparent rudeness unsettled me, but eventually I gathered that she was traveling alone and presumed she was guarding her reputation; thereafter, I simply nodded or tipped my hat and avoided the dour widow
, as I had labeled her in my own mind.

  Two completely different characters—convivial and rather noisy—were also sailing on the Independence. The younger, who was in his fourth decade, was from the upper classes in Germany, or so I guessed from his accent and expensive, showy attire. He was tall, slender, with chestnut hair and a small mustache, both of which had a fiery red gleam in the sunlight. His companion was a brawny Englishman of perhaps fifty years of age who seemed to be in his employ, but also a true friend. His head was bald as an egg but for a mousy fringe of hair and his face was ruddy as were his whiskers. There was something familiar about the two fellows and I wondered if I had met them previously, but they seemed not to know me so I concluded they were merely of a type I had been acquainted with during my army days, due to their irritating habit of practicing various martial arts on deck: fencing, shooting at invisible things in the sea and wrestling with a ferocity that entertained the ship’s crew but must have frightened the ladies on board. Their antics became tiresome very quickly, adding to my desire to hide myself away.

  The voyage seemed interminable, but I gave earnest thanks to God and the inventor of the steamship that the trip did not take twice as long. As we neared Le Havre, it was that magical hour when the sky is cerulean, just before it lapses into black. I stood on deck, scanning the crowd for Dupin. Five years had passed since he had stayed with us in Philadelphia, and while we had exchanged numerous letters, I was anxious to enjoy his company again, for his discourse was always surprising and one never knew what adventure might take place if joining C. Auguste Dupin on a walk through the city at night.